- in=<table>
[<table> ...]
Locations of the input tables. Either specify the
parameter multiple times, or supply the input tables as a space-separated list
within a single use.
The following table location forms are allowed:
- A filename.
- A URL.
- The special value "-", meaning standard input. In this
case the input format must be given explicitly using the ifmt
parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.
- A scheme specification of the form
:<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>.
- A system command line with either a "<" character at
the start, or a "|" character at the end
("<syscmd" or "syscmd|"). This
executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output. This will
probably only work on unix-like systems.
Compression in any of the supported compression formats (Unix compress, gzip or
bzip2) is expanded automatically.
A list of input table locations may be given in an external file
by using the indirction character '@'. Thus "in=@filename"
causes the file filename to be read for a list of input table
locations. The locations in the file should each be on a separate line.
- ifmt=<in-format>
Specifies the format of the input table as specified by
parameter
in. The known formats are listed in SUN/256. This flag can be
used if you know what format your table is in. If it has the special value
(auto) (the default), then an attempt will be made to detect the format
of the table automatically. This cannot always be done correctly however, in
which case the program will exit with an error explaining which formats were
attempted. This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.
The same format parameter applies to all the tables specified by
in.
- multi=true|false
Determines whether all tables, or just the first one,
from input table files will be used. If set
false, then just the first
table from each file named by
in will be used. If
true, then all
tables present in those input files will be used. This only has an effect for
file formats which are capable of containing more than one table, which
effectively means FITS and VOTable and their variants.
- istream=true|false
If set true, the input table specified by the
in
parameter will be read as a stream. It is necessary to give the
ifmt
parameter in this case. Depending on the required operations and processing
mode, this may cause the read to fail (sometimes it is necessary to read the
table more than once). It is not normally necessary to set this flag; in most
cases the data will be streamed automatically if that is the best thing to do.
However it can sometimes result in less resource usage when processing large
files in certain formats (such as VOTable). This parameter is ignored for
scheme-specified tables.
The same streaming flag applies to all the tables specified by
in.
- icmd=<cmds>
Specifies processing to be performed on each input table
as specified by parameter
in, before any other processing has taken
place. The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter commands
described in SUN/256. If more than one is given, they must be separated by
semicolon characters (";"). This parameter can be repeated multiple
times on the same command line to build up a list of processing steps. The
sequence of commands given in this way defines the processing pipeline which
is performed on the table.
Commands may alteratively be supplied in an external file, by
using the indirection character '@'. Thus a value of
"@filename" causes the file filename to be read for
a list of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file may be
separated by newline characters and/or semicolons, and lines which are blank
or which start with a '#' character are ignored.
- out=<out-file>
The location of the output file. This is usually a
filename to write to. If it is equal to the special value "-" the
output will be written to standard output.
- ofmt=<out-format>
Specifies the format in which the output tables will be
written (one of the ones in SUN/256 - matching is case-insensitive and you can
use just the first few letters). If it has the special value
"
(auto)" (the default), then the output filename will be
examined to try to guess what sort of file is required usually by looking at
the extension. If it's not obvious from the filename what output format is
intended, an error will result.
Not all output formats are capable of writing multiple tables; if
you choose one that is not, an error will result.